This past month was one filled with lots of challenges, lots of uncertainty, lots of different hostels and LOTS of unpacking, just to repack and hop on yet another bus. It was a month of being uncomfortable, a month of being stretched and a month of really relying on one another and God. We asked for God’s guidance day to day, as we had no idea what the next day was going to look like or what city we would be traveling to next.
January rolled around and a new season began. It was the start of a new year, a new continent and a new team. Needless to say, I had a minor freak out (only minor – right Schawby?) about all these changes happening at once. This month my new team and I, Team Gold, had Unsung Hero month. This meant that we were traveling around the country of Malawi looking to find new ministries and make new relationships with contacts in Malawi, in hopes that The World Race might be able to send future teams to serve along side them.
As we traveled around Malawi for the month we saw and learned many things. The poverty in Africa is so evident. It’s all around you; you can see it and you can smell it. Much different than in South America, where we spent the last 3 months. Many of these people truly have nothing. Absolutely nothing. No shoes on their feet, no food to feed their kids, and no shelter for their families. Yet, Malawi remains such a colorful and vibrant place, full of energy and life. And lets just say, you better be prepared to preach, or sing, or perform a skit on a moments notice when visiting a church or an orphanage.
We spent the majority of our month focusing on Southern Malawi. I knew that January was the rainy season in Africa, but I had no idea how severe it would be. Three of the cities we were visiting were declared natural disaster areas. Parts of Zomba, Phalombe and Blantyre were severely flooded. Roads were washed away and many homes were collapsing.
Amidst all the rain and all the flooding, we continued our journey. We spent several hours on travel days barreling down half washed away roads, bouncing around on each other’s laps. We experienced countlesssss power and water outages. And encountered more funky smells than we ever wanted – ask any of my team mates 🙂
But, through it all, we met some amazing, genuine and passionate people. We spent some great days visiting with potential ministries and gained some awesome new contacts for The World Race. It was a challenging month indeed, filled with lots of tough decisions as well as getting to know one another. But, I undoubtedly know that God had everything planned this month for us for a purpose. We are growing and we are stretching, and I’m looking forward to continuing down that path with my team as we head into Zambia on Saturday!
